Tag Archives: manatees

A consequence of meeting someone and then marrying them while being five months pregnant with their child, all in under a year, is that for a long while after all that excitement, you’re still getting to know your life partner. There are times when I’ll say “My friend Algernon* got married” and Tex will say “Algernon? You’ve never mentioned an Algernon” even though Algernon was my best friend in fifth through eighth grade. Then, I’ll tell him all about who I was when the world wore necklaces made of Bonnebelland braces.

So when a dresser full of papers from my childhood bedroom arrived, Tex stopped me before I could recycle the lot. “Wait” he said “we need to go through this together. This is a gold mine.” Waving a page around gleefully he said “Look there’s even your school project on manatees!”

I did do a project on manatees, but the paper he was waving around wasn’t it. I’m a heartless purger of memorabilia of any kind so that particular project had hit the blue bin two decades ago. In fact before Tex declared an amnesty for my childhood papers, I had already peeled the photographs from the pages because I know the city doesn’t take them with newspapers.

Fast forward to Tex and I sitting together, going through all of my junk. Once again, Tex grabbed for the papers about the manatees. “Who is Deep Dent?” Tex asked as he read over the paper congratulating me on my contribution to a manatee sanctuary. “He’s my manatee.” I answered, “For my birthdays I would ask for people to adopt manatees for me because I’ve always been an environment loving, dirty hippie”.

“Cool” Tex responded with his signature buoyant enthusiasm. “What do you know about these manatees?”

Tex reached for the pages of information about Deep Dent and the two other manatees I had adopted. “Neat. Are there pictures?”

“I took them out already, I was going to put them in the trash.”

Tex stopped rifling through the pages to look at me. “Do you mean to say that you don’t know anything about these manatees that you’ve adopted and you don’t have pictures of them? You’re a deadbeat manatee parent.” He glanced down at Amanda the manatee’s biography. “Did you at least visit them?”

So there you have it world. My mother is an excellent grandmother and a good step-parent even if she doesn’t want to be acknowledged in either of those roles, whereas I mindlessly adopt manatees and forget about them. Give me forty lashes or chain me to the stocks, or whatever it is that’s done to deadbeats.

*I didn’t actually have a friend named Algernon. Mostly because when I was younger I didn’t have friends. Not because I was unpopular, I was just unpleasant. But these types of omissions of information happen with Tex and I all the time. Probably because during the first year we were together, a little under half of it was consumed with prenatal activities and discussions. And by prenatal activities I mean vomiting. And by discussions I mean this conversation:

“Are you going to puke?”

“That looks like your puke face.”

“I’m pulling over to the side of the road now.”

Kids, the lesson here is to bang hot cowboys and get to know them later. It’s a tried and true recipe for life success, as evidenced by me, the deadbeat manatee parent. Now if you’ll excuse me, I just realized I forgot about the possum that I brought home last week and put in the porch.

I’ve decided that this is becoming less of a writing exercise and more of a performance art piece as I gradually morph into a living internet troll.

This is me, only instead of telling people online that they look funny, I write postcards about python wrestling and don’t sign them. (Photo Credit : shopatnorway.com)

It was an unintentional outcome. I’ve always written lots of letters to family, and on occasion have forgotten to sign my name, leaving my loved ones guessing as to who sent it. But with my sending out more than a hundred postcards to every Tom, Dick and Harry in my address book, this habit of remaining accidentally anonymous has reached a new level. On Facebook, friends who have received multiple postcards are posting “Whoever is sending me mail from Winnipeg thanks for not being a bill”

In addition, I’ve received texts asking “Did you send this?” The funny aspect of writing A LOT is that occasionally, you forget what you’ve written and so the knee jerk reaction is to say “No, that’s some other weirdo” and you hit “send” only to realize that you were that weirdo, and now not only did you forget to sign your name, but you denied it. Oh what a tangled written web I’ve woven, since I haven’t developed any sort of common sense, I’m going to continue sending out cards, here is the latest batch.

Dear Andrew*

This is the restaurant where at 11 years old, I decided to eat my weight in soda crackers much to my mother’s chagrin. Ostensibly the large basket of delicious, crunchy goods was there for diners to delicately crumble into their seafood chowder. However, my preteen mind took that basket overflowing with individually packaged snacks as a challenge. It was around the 30th packet when my mother looked over from the next table where she and the other adults in our party were sitting and realized what I was doing. She then commanded me to stop. I hold this event responsible each time I devour a box of crackers in one sitting; I’m merely trying to finish what I started.

I didn’t sign this card. The missing moniker had less to do with forgetfulness and more to do with a lack of space. I figured that the recipient would deduce that there are only a few people in his life that would write up, around and back down the sides of a postcard to finish their thought.

This next one was also sent to my friend Andrew, even though I didn’t address him up top, I did sign it. I think I should get bonus points.

I bought approximately a dozen of these kinds of postcards when my Dad took my sister and me to France. I had great intentions of painstakingly cutting them out and gluing the miniature buildings together so I could film “Godzilla in France: Run! And Don’t Forget the Baguettes” but then that project quickly petered out after I lost my good scissors. It’s just as well, my Godzilla noise sounded a bit like a hamster gargling -not at all terrifying. Whereas a woman who systematically spams everyone she knows with cards from random locations and neglects to sign them, now that’s scary. Or at the very least, a sign that someone should hide my pens. I’ll sign this one to prove how responsible I am.

-Unwashed

The knights are arguing about who can profess the awesomeness of Tom Bricker with more clarity and bravado. The winner will lay claim to the Tom Bricker fan club. You can’t hear it, but they’re shouting “I feel he is awesome and the best for his photographs.” ~Clash, clang~ “Oh yeah? Well I feel his educated but colloquial writing style combined with his photographs, make him the leader and king of awesome.” Ok it might not have gone exactly like that- there were a lot more “doths” and “thous”.

This manatee king is sad because he lost at checkers. Even manatee royalty isn’t impervious to losing. Manatees are notoriously sore losers. It’s one of the reasons there are no tables under the sea; the Gods saw that the manatee’s behavior made the Real Housewives series look tame after a particularly tense game of Parcheesi. Consequently they roam around, convincing the occasional person to play Crazy Eights.

I sent this to a childhood friend and didn’t sign it for kicks. I signed the other one I sent her. It’s like a trust exercise, but instead of catching me when I people surf blind-folded off a table, she has to try and see whether my penmanship has changed since we were friends at the age of eight. It’s possible that I don’t understand trust exercises.

Recently while searching for my lost passport I found a stack of blank postcards.

And I thought what many people think in this same situation “I want to write awkward messages to distant acquaintances.” Hence I approached my Dad who works with a lot of people, some who have met me, some who have only heard of me.

The Great Unwashed “I want to write to your clients. I’m sure Camilla Parker Bowles would love a postcard of a manatee with a moustache.”

Dad “First off I don’t think you understand what I do- I don’t work with Camilla Parker Bowles and secondly I’m not giving you my clients’ addresses.”

Even the queen Mum would want this postcard.

Next I went to my sister Diana.

The Great Unwashed “Lend me your address book, I want to send postcards to all of your friends.”

Diana “I don’t have an address book and please stop sending valentines to my roommates. It’s really weird to receive hearts with goofy smiles from strangers in September.”

Stacey’s Bad Word. A new way to express my affection for Diana’s friends.

I was at a loss. Short of distributing postcards to all of Roscoe’s patients which he claimed “Would be a violation of ethics and their privacy” I had no one new to send mail to.

And for a moment I despaired. What would become of Travesty Tuesdays? My beloved series of posts which sometimes appear on the second day of the work week that feature odd correspondence sent to those I know and love. But much like the act of riding an armadillo to work, after a while receiving poorly drawn stick figures and descriptions of falling in the shower becomes the norm over time. My family simply does not appreciate receiving Easter cards about attempting to hog tie raccoons the way they used to. I needed a new audience to send my ramblings to.

(Photo Credit : doingitdt.areavoices.com)

Thus I am calling on my Unwashed public. If you would love nothing more than a vintage Babysitter’s Club postcard about the bus ride I took with a recently paroled drug dealer who is about to become a baby daddy please send me your contact information.

Fair readers, if you choose to help me tackle this pile of postcards I promise not to share your personal information with anyone. I also pledge to only send you one postcard. Unless you are one of Diana’s roommates in which case I popped yet another valentine proclaiming my undying love in the mail just this morning. I also promise that I’m not a 350 lb women’s prison guard. At best I hover around a third of that size and am occasionally mistaken for an eighth grader.

Alternatively you can private message me on Facebook by “Liking” The Great Unwashed. Or if you are feeling a little mischievous you could send the address of your arch nemesis.

*My email seems narcissistic until you realize that it’s meant to be a reminder. I also have a post it with the words “Put Food Here!” on my fridge because it’s just awkward to store leeks in your sock drawer.

Based on the sheer number of these kinds of postcards I can only assume I meant to create some sort of miniature paper city of monuments for a tiny Godzilla to destroy. Only possible conclusion.

The next three posts will be about cats. Please note this is not a blog about cats, mostly because I don’t have any. It would violate the agreement that we have with our landlord, where we commit highway robbery each time we pay rent and they ask us not to have pets.

Endangered species or slowest assassins of the sea? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Also cats are not my favourite animal. If pressed I would say my favourite animal is the manatee. But that’s only if I’m not in the water with manatees. If I was I’d be shouting “Why in goodness name do you want to know my favourite animal? Can’t you see these manatees are going to kill me by swimming over me and not realizing I’m trapped underneath them?” It’s one of my greatest nightmares- death by an inert group of manatees.

That being said, for someone who is not an avid lover of cats I’ve spent approximately eighty percent of my life living with them and ten percent of my life cleaning their litter boxes. The disproportionate amount of litter box cleaning that I’ve done may explain my lack of unabashed love for the creatures.

My sister and mom on the other hand spend their life amassing cats and loving cats. They also enjoy taking photos of them and looking at photos of cats. It is my understanding that this is standard for all cat lovers.

Without further adieu, my most recent communication to my dear sister.

Diana,

I thought I should contact you first before the organization does.

Your Crazy Cat Lady membership is being revoked. I wrote a post about our recently deceased cat. Needing a photo to go along with the post I turned to your Facebook page. Not only did I fail to find a photo of said cat, but my search failed to turn up any cat pictures at all on your Facebook profile.

As you are supposedly “the cat lover” in the family I found this oddly suspicious. Further inquiry turned up a photo of a daschund that was once tagged “Diana’s best friend”. More searching turned up a comment you made of “OMG cutest thing alive” in response to a photo of a Golden Doodle puppy.

By this point I was quite alarmed and questioning who my sister really was, it was in that state that I telephoned the Crazy Cat Ladies organization.

They’ll be by at some point this week to confiscate both your cat tree and your floppy crocheted hat.

I think it goes without saying that you’re not to buy cat nip or any other feline related paraphernalia for a year.